Infosys-ICTS Chandrasekhar Lectures
The renowned astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar worked on a variety of pathbreaking problems in his lifetime. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1983 for formulating theories for the creation of the ‘white dwarf’ as the hydrogen fuel of stars of a certain size runs out. The Infosys-ICTS Chandrasekhar Lecture Series are delivered by eminent physicists. The first lecture in any series is aimed at a general audience, while the remaining are targeted at specialists.
Past Lectures
Is Direct Numerical Simulation of Turbulence Entering into The High-Precision Era?
Uriel Frisch (Laboratoire Lagrange, Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur Universite de Nice-Sophia Antipolis)
12 December 2011, 16:00 to 17:00
Faculty Hall, IISc, Bangalore
Over the last few years direct numerical simulation (DNS) of turbulence have achieved, in extreme cases, spatial resolutions of 32K squared collocation points in 2D and 4K cubed points in 3D. In the past it was deemed not necessary in DNS simulations to exceed double precision (roughly 16...more
Applied String Theory
Dam Thanh Son (University of Washington,)
21 March 2011, 16:00 to 17:00
AG 66, TIFR, Mumbai
Gauge/gravity duality, discovered in string theory in 1997, has became a powerful theoretical tool in the study of quantum field theories at strong coupling. I will review recent attempts to use gauge/gravity duality to understand the physics of strongly interacting media, focusing on the quark...more
The Quantum Phases of Matter
Subir Sachdev (Harvard University)
06 December 2010, 16:00 to 17:00
Faculty Hall, IISc, Bangalore
Quantum mechanics was developed in the early twentieth century to describe the motion of a single electron in a hydrogen atom. Later, Einstein and others pointed out that the quantum theory of a pair of electrons had non-intuitive features which they found unpalatable: two well-separatedelectrons...more
What Modern Mathematical Physics should be - A point of view
Ludwig Dmitrievich Faddeev (Steklov Mathematical Institute)
23 November 2010, 16:00 to 17:00
AG 66, TIFR, Mumbai
" I present my own point of view on the main goal of mathematical physics. It is not the proof of theorems of results known to theoretical physicists. Rather it is the use of the mathematical intuition to deal with problems which arise in physics. This satement is illustrated by several examples...more
The Standard Model Of Cosmology
Lyman Page (Princeton University)
06 April 2010, 16:00 to 17:00
AG 66, TIFR, Mumbai
We now have a well established standard model of cosmology that agrees with virtually all cosmological observations regardless of the method or the object under study. The model indicates that the universe today comprises 5% atoms, 23% dark matter, and 72% dark energy. The model assumes a...more
Black Holes- The Harmonic Oscillators
Andrew Strominger (Havard University)
04 January 2010, 16:00 to 17:00
AG 66, TIFR, Mumbai
In the twentieth century, many problems across all of physics were solved by perturbative methods which reduced them to harmonic oscillators. Black holes are poised to play a similar role for the problems of twenty-first century physics. They are at once the simplest and most complex objects in the...more
Extremal Black Holes in String Theory
Ashoke Sen (Harish- Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad, India)
10 August 2009, 16:00 to 17:00
AG 66, TIFR, Mumbai
In these lectures Prof. Sen will review recent progress on understanding the entropy of black holes in the extremal limit, both from macroscopic and the microscopic points of view.more

Pages